


Inertia

by Leyenn



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-16
Updated: 2009-11-16
Packaged: 2017-10-03 01:54:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leyenn/pseuds/Leyenn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Losing is hard: normality afterwards is harder.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inertia

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilerish for OOTP. Challenge Answer for the S/R Fuh-Q-Fest, prompts: _42\. Harry is killed by Voldemort, and the Wizarding World falls. Sirius and Remus are on the run and grieving. / 68. Sirius and Remus go into hiding as Muggles._

This is Charles Blaylock, who takes every fourth weekend off from his job (he works as a night porter, five forty an hour, plus benefits) and lives in Flat No. 15 above Temple Court, Roehampton. He keeps pigeons on the allotment that the kids say look like owls if you stare too closely, and in moments when you catch him not thinking, he will turn at the name of Remus.

This is James, who won't give a second name, except that Charles (who listens at the name of Remus) will never call him James, but always Paddy. James doesn't work except for those occasional nights down the pub when - if you wanted something in particular - he can generally sell you anything small enough to fit in a pocket; although he won't deal in little white packets and those who did, well, there are a lot more newts in the Swamp round behind the chippy than before he and Charles (who answers to the name of Remus, and twitches if you say 'moon' too loudly within five feet) moved in.

This is Flat No. 15, Temple Court, Roehampton, London, which people really can see and has a postman and a door phone system and everything. It has one bedroom, but that's nothing special around here, all the flats are cramped, and at least from up here you have a good view of the market on a Sunday. Everyone knows that James and Charles (who answers to the name of Remus, still, and this flat has a nice view of the moon, too, most nights) only have one bedroom, because in the little places within the big places like this, everyone knows everything, but it's no bother. They could tell James was a little queer anyway.

  


*

  


Being up here reminds him of their dormitory some afternoons, when he wakes up and looks out of the window. Twelve floors up is nearly high enough for imagining stone walls and sleeping in a four-poster, curling up together and every five minutes one of them feigning an itch just to recheck the _silencio_ around a creaky bed. Then he gets up and makes breakfast, but now he has to set the kettle to boil and the dishes in their kitchenette won't fill themselves. Inside he tries to be fifteen and telling Peter not to be so dumb, of course that wasn't Padfoot making that noise in his bed last night, and besides they're underage, don't be a prat.

Outside he's passing thirty-eight, growing old in a mirror that doesn't care that it's not his time, not now, not yet. It wasn't anybody's time - but it doesn't hear him say that, either. Even Padfoot tries not to hear that.

Harry's wand sits there on the mantelpiece like ashes. Days go by and he just doesn't see it any more, and then others when he thinks if he would just turn around fast enough there's a third lost little boy in this life they're living. He doesn't know which he hates or which hurts more. It's still there, even now, mostly on Saturdays when he goes for the paper and a box of Marlborough twenties (and always manages to come back with a Kit Kat to share and a bag of pork scratchings as well, because something in him says, we should still do the little things, there's no big things left).

"Charlie and James," he hears it almost without fail, it's not a Saturday unless he hears it at least once, "oh, a nice couple. Shame about - you know." But of course some people never do. "Oh, they had a little boy, and he died." Even sixteen is little to seventy-five years plus and sprayed-solid grey hair over milky tea.

He wishes he just knew, some days, and he envies - even the nightmares and the hollow gaze when Sirius wakes at two a.m. and does everything short of inject coffee to keep from falling back to sleep. He doesn't talk about it, doesn't want to talk about it: _won't_ talk about it, and Remus has been trying - begging, pleading, yelling, everything but biting for fourteen months, off and on. If he could just know that it wasn't so bad, that there might have been peace, that Harry-

Sirius usually makes him tea at around that point, and goes to bed early with a pain in his eyes. Then Remus will curl up on the sofa and wish for the wolf to take him until morning, but it never does. They kiss over Weetabix the next morning or the morning after and pretend it's all forgotten. They know pretend very, very well, and they're as good at it as if their lives depended on being so.

He works a week or two and then a week off, and every month at least they try again, at night when no one around will hear the flapping of wings out into the darkness. Once there was a scrap of paper back, but Bill never answered again. They're pretending still, pretending they're not alone. When the wolf takes him and he can see only Padfoot, only them curled on a bed together, and recall only the vague memory of drinking a potion hotter and harsher than it should be (or would be if either of them had ever passed Potions with any confidence), in those moments it hurts and it's so blissful, because he thinks hard about being fifteen behind drapes and a _silencio_ spell and when he's been good, delirium will tell him it's real.

When he wakes up he'll be curled in black paws or scratched hands, and he'll take hours to open his eyes and find that the drapes aren't there. The skin he touches now will be pale and worn, scarred in places you should never see scars and growing old alone alongside him. They always fuck after that: Paddy always tries and always fails to resist him, tries to say he's too weak, they should wait. Tries not to be the animal from last night they still just about remember, but he doesn't understand, that's what Remus wants. It's all he has left, to be the wolf, to have the magic inside him, to know it's still there. He's afraid to wake up one full moon and have it gone.

Padfoot doesn't understand, but he'll try to help all the same. They hardly talk any more but the fucking is sometimes better. Sometimes it says the things they can't tell each other, about being alone and old and afraid and _normal_: it will start animal and wild and end sensitive with Padfoot lying across him or beside him and crying, and Remus won't remember why. They'll sit there side by side on the bed or the sofa or leaning up against the microwave and he'll beg to be called Sirius, please call me Sirius, _please_.

They know it's only inertia keeping them together.

  


*

  


This is the graveyard of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, five minutes' walk from the university, and this is the grave that sits marked with a blank stone and a worn cherub blowing his horn, where every Friday night you will see a dog and sometimes a slavering wolf - although of course, everyone who knows everything around here will tell you that's just a silly tale the children tell. No one's really seen it, and anyway the vicar is too kind-hearted so there are always strays.

This is the Chapel, with its altar and its little tea lights in sand and the lighter in case you wanted to come and say a prayer for your goldfish, and three stubby candles always burning.

  


*

  



End file.
